Road Warrior

 

The in basket: Way back in July, Sun staff writer Brynn Grimley wrote, “I noticed that the speed limit on Highway 16 coming into Gorst has changed, and there’s no orange flags or anything to make it obvious.

“Originally the speed limit was 60 mph heading down the hill into Gorst. There was a sign by that wildlife viewing area indicating the “Speed Zone Ahead” and then by Natte Latte there was the 40 mph sign.

“Now, there’s just a 45 mph sign by Elandan Gardens, and then the 40 mph sign. There is no indication that the limit has been reduced by 15 mph. I’ve also noticed other drivers continuing at the 60 mph (or above) through Gorst until hitting the 40 mph sign. 

“When did they make this change?” Brynn asked.

The out basket: The 45 mph sign was a mistake and was quickly removed, says Deanna Brewer, a state highway engineer. I was on vacation in July so I never saw it. 

The reason I bring this up now is what really was intended there and has replaced the erroneous sign, a 40 mph speed limit sign framed by a yellow diamond-shaped sign with an arrow pointing up.

Had I not been told in the spring by engineer Steve Bennett of the state highways that they would be moving back toward Tacoma the advisory sign warning of the upcoming 40 mph zone in Gorst, I would have had to guess whether the arrow sign meant a 40 mph zone was coming up or that one began at that point. I’d never seen one like it.

Deanna Brewer says the signs are warnings of an upcoming speed reduction and that the speed limit between that one and the 40 mph signs in Gorst remains 60.

She said many more of the arrow signs will be appearing between now and 2018 and they will replace the signs that say “Speed Zone Ahead” with the upcoming speed limit beneath them. 

It’s all in the spirit of having signs that don’t require a person to understand English, which seems to me started with the symbols of men and women on restroom doors years ago.  

Deanna said the state is mandated by the federal government to comply with the design change, which was made in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the traffic engineers bible, with a compliance date of December 2018.  The old signs will be replaced as they wear out or disappear. The 2018 deadline allows the department plenty of time to meet their compliance date, she said.  

Since July, the new style of sign was put on the off-ramp from Highway 3 to Highway 304 entering Bremerton, and I spotted a couple of them on county roads in North Mason.

Tags: Gorst, Highway 16, speed limit

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at 9:36 am by travis baker and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.